It’s the moooooost woooonderful tiiiimeeeeeee of the year!
NEW YEAR’S.
Also, Christmas.
Christmas in Ukraine is a little… well, strange. During the Soviet era, religion was discouraged. Rather than giving up Christian traditions, Ukrainians played along.
“Christmas? Oh… no. This is my New Year’s Tree.”
(I am not kidding.)
Celebrating New Year’s rather than Christmas kind of stuck around even after the Soviet Union collapsed, and now, New Year’s Eve is the big winter holiday celebrated in Ukraine.
Because most Ukrainians adhere to the Orthodox calendar as well, Christmas is mostly celebrated on January 7 in Ukraine. My host family was an exception. Mama Natasha is a devout Catholic, so I celebrated Christmas on Dec. 24 and 25, while most of my Ukrainian friends and counterparts held off until early January.
However, the dates of actual Christmas are kind of irrelevant here. Christmas-slash-New Year’s is celebrated for weeks at a time.
I just wanted to share a few highlights from my first Christmas-slash-New-Year’s here in Khmelnytskyi.
I wrote a little bit about Christmas in Kyiv, which I got to experience a bit of during a weekend trip to see Star Wars. (Priorities.)
But, since I spent the bulk of my holiday season in Khmelnytskyi, I wanted to write a long (seriously… Christmas season is LONG and so is this post!) blog post talking about alllll the holiday ongoings in my little oblast capital.
So, like I said… the holiday season starts early and runs long. Christmas decorations started appearing in the town center at the beginning of December! We had a giant tree, a bunch of light sculptures, a large stage that was frequently used for dance and choir performances and an honest-to-God legit authentic European Christmas market.
All of the heart-eye emojis, you guys. Pinch me, I’m dreaming!
There were booths full of holiday decorations, a small food court selling delicacies from local restaurants and every third booth was a mulled wine vendor.
The holiday market was so fun because cold weather really doesn’t stop Ukrainians from congregating outside. I would walk down to the city center a few times a week — either alone on my way to English club, or with Stas, or with Dasha or other friends — and there would always be tons of people outside socializing and wandering and shopping.
I honestly wonder how long the market will stay up, since Christmas just wrapped up a few days ago.
We also had several holiday dinners.
Like I said, my host mom is Catholic, so our dinners started in late December. We had a Christmas Eve dinner at her sister’s home, and a Christmas Day dinner at our home.
We also had another Christmas dinner for the English teachers and headmaster at my school.
We also went to church on Christmas.
There were also a ton of gifts!
We opened gifts at Mama Natasha’s on Christmas, and when I tell you I SCREAMED when I opened my present, well…
…I did. Mama Natasha got matching pajamas for me and Ira, her ACTUAL daughter.
And, because Ukrainians adhere to both the Gregorian and Julian calendar — kind of, on-and-off, when they want to, sometimes, who knows? — I celebrated two St. Nicholas days with my host family. I was gifted coffee, candy and a little french press of my own.
Mine broke in transit to Ukraine.
The gifts just randomly kept coming through the weeks — mostly just small inexpensive trinkets and foods to show affection and appreciation.
One of my students was sweet enough to gift me this little box complete with AN AVOCADO IN A SANTA HAT!
My counterparts and Ukrainian friends/ students also showed me a ton of love. The four English teachers I work closest with got together to gift me a beautiful sweater.
And my LCF Yuliya even sent me a cute little holiday package from Lviv!
I seriously feel so loved here. It’s a little hard to be away from family for the holidays, but my “second family,” as my dad affectionately dubbed the Ukrainians in my life, made it so much easier.
And, finally… English clubs! Because no Peace Corps service is ever complete without English clubs on English clubs.
I held a holiday English club for my Gymnasium No. 2 students, where we learned about Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa traditions in the United States. We also wrote letters to Santa, which we put in clear plastic New Year’s Tree ornaments to take home and keep.
My Window on America adult conversation club was also holiday-themed. We played a “Family Feud”-style game and then had a relay to pop balloons filled with trivia questions (red team vs. green team) which was a lot of fun… although there were a lot of errant sharp objects that seemed to be making the game go quicker.
I really wanted to do “candy cane fishing” because it’s less plastic waste… but turns out, candy canes aren’t really a thing here.
That’s about it! Like I said, the decorations are still up all across Khmelnytskyi and festivities are still happening, so I’m curious to know when, exactly, Christmas season comes to an end here.
Regardless, I’m so grateful that I had a chance to celebrate the holidays here in Ukraine with my wonderful host family and friends, and I’m already excited that I get to do it again next year!
Веселого Різдва та щасливого Нового року!
This post was published Sept. 7, 2021. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps Service.
